Conventional unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have limited flight time because their battery life is often limited to ten to thirty minutes at the most. When a battery is expended, the UAV needs to land, and the expended battery needs to be exchanged by a user or recharged before the UAV can operate again.
The necessity for frequent user interaction to maintain and exchange batteries of one or more UAVs is not suitable where extended duty times are required or where extended autonomous operation is desired for a fleet of UAVs.
In view of the foregoing, a need exists for an improved UAV base station system and method for autonomous exchange of UAV batteries in an effort to overcome the aforementioned obstacles and deficiencies of conventional UAV systems.